China defends ‘buzzing’ US ship in Taiwan Strait

PTI

Singapore, June 4

China’s Defence Minister defended sailing a warship across the path of an American destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait, telling a gathering of some of the world’s top Defence officials in Singapore on Sunday that such so-called “freedom of navigation” patrols was a provocation to China.

Gen Li Shangfu said at the Shangri-La Dialogue that China didn’t have any problem with “innocent passage” but that “we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation (patrols) to exercise hegemony of navigation”. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told the same forum on Saturday that Washington would not “flinch in the face of bullying or coercion” from China and would continue regularly sailing through and flying over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

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